New Work

For the past couple months I have been exploring various designs using a diagonal shift element, working up from simple test models and crease patterns to more complex designs. Now I’m exploring a new variation of the same theme.

In this test model, I am using the same basic diagonal shift element but also changing the width of the tube above and below the shift. This gives the design a bit more flexibility in how I can use it. The change in width only adds a little complexity to the crease pattern, but it makes the model a bit more challenging to collapse.

This model is a continuation of my diagonal shift series. In this piece, I pushed the off-balance look I started exploring earlier in the series to its limit. As before, I put small rocks in the bottom of the model to keep it balanced. Since the paper is so light, the little bit of extra weight allows me to create shapes that would be nearly impossible in other sculptural media. Just like I’ve been doing throughout this series, I enjoy combining simple, elegant forms with unexpected elements.

The double diagonal shift is challenging to collapse. This version where the two shifts are going in the same direction is more challenging than my last version where the shifts went in opposite directions.

For this design, I incorporated a gradient of metallic paint, from silver at the top to copper at the bottom, and left the black paper exposed on the planes of the diagonal shift. As always, I painted the paper before folding it.

This piece builds on my recent test models and copper vase using a diagonal shift element. This is my first model incorporating more than one diagonal shift into the same model. It’s certainly more challenging to collapse the model – I almost had to wrestle the paper into shape. It’s also particularly difficult to do any sort of shaping to the middle tier since there’s no way to reach inside of it to manipulate the paper.

As always, I painted the paper before folding it. Since the folds created strong diagonals, I used the paint to incorporate additional diagonal design elements.

As was pointed out to me on Flickr several months ago, these sorts of designs have a bit of a surrealist twist. I had the original idea for this series shortly after visiting the Magritte Museum in Brussels, which probably influenced me subconsciously. My origami has always had a contrast between simple, elegant forms and an engineering aspect of analyzing how the shape is constructed from one uncut rectangle of paper. This series takes that analysis aspect and makes it more explicitly part of the shape  itself.

After folding several test models with a diagonal shift, I was finally able to incorporate that design element into a more complex model. For this model, I used black Elephant Hide paper and painted all of the paper except for the diagonal shift element with gold and copper acrylic paint. Because the top half of the model is shifted so far to one side, the vase normally would be very unstable and prone to tipping over. I put a few pebbles in the bottom of the vase to weigh it down. Since the paper is so light, it doesn’t take much extra weight to make it stable.

In my recent oval models, I have been combining segments of different sizes of circles. Here I’ve taken the same idea of combining portions of circles in a different direction. This corrugation is based on three equally sized semicircles that alternate directions like in the letter S. As the outer circles get larger, the inner circle gets smaller, and vice versa.

In this model, the outer edges were challenging to fold because there is not much tension to hold the paper in place. This design could be extended indefinitely as a series of repeating curves, or it could be combined with circles of other sizes to create a closed form like in my oval forms.

Building on my recent oval test model, I folded this bowl based on an oval. Again, the oval is made of portions of circles of two sizes. Here, the radius of the small circle is 2″ at the widest point, and the radius of the large circle is 6″ at the widest point. The collapse of the bottom half of the form was fairly straightforward, but the top part was more challenging because the form wanted to become more circular. Overall, I think ovals will work fairly well for relatively short, simple forms but will be challenging for taller forms and more complex forms. Even though I think a lot of interesting things could be done with ovals, I’m using the ovals mostly as a building block toward some of my other ideas that are in the works.

A couple of months ago I played with hand-marbling paper using oil paints. The paper is still an experiment, but I’m fairly happy with how it turned out. The oil tended to create ripples in the paper, which limits the complexity of what I can fold. This model is a fairly simple design to try out my new paper. This piece is folded from one uncut rectangle of Strathmore pastel paper.

This piece is also part of my Intersections series. This piece combines the shape of my recent Hinged Bowl with an offsetting of the two halves I first experimented with last spring. This type of shape was my original plan when I started designing the Janus Vase, but figuring out a crease pattern that would work required approaching the form in a different way. This piece is folded from one uncut rectangle of Elephant Hide paper.

This piece is a continuation of my Intersections series, continuing with the same themes of unity and contrast as in my last piece.  Instead of playing with a reversal of top and bottom, I am exploring a reversal of inside and outside, which gave one convex form and one concave form.  The sharp inward slope near the base of the concave form was surprisingly difficult to collapse smoothly.  Each form is folded from one rectangle of Elephant Hide paper.

This vase is part of my Intersections series.  Here I am continuing to explore using flat planes to divide a curved form.  In this piece, I am playing with themes of unity and contrast between the two halves.  The two parts have the same curve defining their shape, but with a reversal of which end of the curve is the top and which is the bottom.  Each of the halves is folded from one uncut rectangle of Elephant Hide paper.